


Four times Bray fails to take Amber on a date.

by Josie



Category: The Tribe (TV 1999)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josie/pseuds/Josie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Bray wants to do is to take Amber on the perfect date, but it seems the rest of the Mallrats are determined to put a stop to it in one way or the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four times Bray fails to take Amber on a date.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [butterflymind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflymind/gifts).



**  
1\. Getting the wrong message.   
**

**  
**

The rose petals had been the hardest to get hold of. In this world, growing beautiful flowers wasn’t really anyone’s highest priority, or in fact even a consideration. 

In this world, improvisation was the key, and he’d enlisted the help of Patsy and Cloe who had been reluctant to help until he’d offered them candy as a reward, at which point they had sat for an hour cutting petal shapes out of paper and painting them red. They were now spread through the mall's corridors, between Amber's bedroom and his own, and Bray was in his bedroom making some final preparations, which apparently included removing his shirt.

He heard footsteps down the corridor, and raced to light the last candle beside the bed, cursing that the matches never seemed to work right when he was in a rush. He was just attempting to light the third attempt, when a shadow fell across the doorway.

“What the hell is this?” a voice spoke, and it was one that most definitely didn't belong to the person he had been expecting. Amber's voice was heavenly and this... this belonged to Lex. Bray dropped his match in shock, and turned his head. Lex was standing with a half-amused, half-furious expression on his face, holding up one of the fake rose petals.

“I may be mistaken but it looks like a rose petal to me,” Bray commented dryly, wondering why Lex always had to be just where he didn't want him to be. The miraculously lit match had set the corner of the pillow on fire, and he momentarily turned back to pat it out with his hand. “Do you want something?”

Lex threw the petal to the ground in annoyance, although the fluttering that resulted didn't have quiet the effect he wanted. “Don't get funny with me, why did you tell me to come here?” he asked, and he took another step into the room, kicking pointlessly at the paper on the ground.

“Why did I tell _you_ toto come here?”

“Is there an echo? Yeah, in the note you left me!”

Bray sniggered a little, and sat up straight, folding his arms across his chest. “You really shouldn't steal other people's rations, everyone needs food!”

Lex clenched his fists by his sides. “You're accusing me of being a thief now?”

“Well how did you know to come here?”

“There was a note in the food and it said you wanted to see me in your room, and so I followed all this shit on the floor and here you are half dressed!”

“That note was for Amber.”

“Don't try and take it back now. Look, I know I'm a handsome guy, and I can understand why you would like me, but I'm just not into guys, right? I'm a man, not a girl. And even if I was into guys, I wouldn't go for an idiot like you.”

“Lex, where did you get that plate of food?” Bray pressed, ignoring the insult he had just been thrown. If he took offence to every insult Lex had ever thrown him, he would have fallen into a depression long ago.

“Amber's room. It was sitting there unwanted, and I didn't want to waste such precious food, after all”

“And yet you assumed the note sitting on the tray was for you? Even though it was in her room an addressed to her?” Bray asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Are you making fun of me?” Lex frowned.

Bray let out a deep sigh and rolled his eyes, shrugging his shoulders a little, but his lips were curved in a slight smirk. Sometimes there was nothing he liked better than showing Lex up. He thought sometimes that the other man needed it.

Unfortunately it seemed Lex didn't really agree, and Bray didn't have time to move before the other's fist made contact with the side of his face. He was dazed for a moment or two, but as he regained his composure, he launched himself at Lex, the pair of them crashing to the ground beside the bed, amongst the rose petals. Some of the petals that had been spread on the bed fluttered down from the sheets, landing on top of them as they lay entwined on the floor.

“Am I interrupting something?” a voice spoke from the doorway, and Lex sniggered from on top of Bray, who looked over at the doorway in shock.

“Amber, no, it's not what it -” he started, but was quickly interrupted.

“Save it, I don't want to know.”

Bray groaned as he heard Amber's footsteps retreating from the doorway, and glared at Lex, who seemed to be finding the whole situation very amusing.

 

 **2\. Demon Dogs may be closer than they appear.**

 

It was difficult to find a good and safe spot for a picnic in the middle of the city, but this was what Bray chose to do. After all, at least if they were in the city, they knew what the threats were, and he had seen enough dangerous gangs on his first journey _into_ the city, to know that there were some very dangerous people out there. At least in the city, he knew who those dangerous people were and where they were likely to be.

Tinned food didn't make for the best picnic treats, but he had done the best he could, transferring from tins to nice bowls, decorating with real flowers he'd picked up on an abandoned roadside, a bottle of wine he'd looted and hidden away for a special occasion. He thought he'd done pretty well. And to top it all off, the sun was shining, and the sky was bright. Lying on the blanket staring upwards as he was right now, he could almost imagine that everything was normal.

He'd left a message for Amber, telling her to meet him there as soon as she read it, and given the fact that time was somewhat dead in this world, he wasn't exactly sure when she would read it and he just hoped that he wouldn't be sitting out here after nightfall.

He closed his eyes, wondering if he had time to take a nap here under the clouds before she arrived. But his thoughts on whether that was a safe idea came too late, because running around planning this date had exhausted him, and only a minute or so after his eyes slid shut, he had fallen to sleep.

Dreams of being chased by Demon Dogs invaded his dreams, he was being chased but no matter how fast he ran, they were constantly behind him and they found him wherever he hid. The moment he thought he had given them the slip, he heard a loud voice yelling in his direction.

“Get him!” a voice yelled, and he opened his eyes, sighing with relief at having woken up, away from the dream. And then he heard footsteps, and he heard the voice again.

It wasn't a dream.

He leapt up from his place on the blanket as he saw three Demon Dogs racing towards him, their leader in the background, standing watching his underlings capturing a new toy to play with. There was no time to even think about packing the picnic away, but he managed to at least grab the bottle of wine and slip it into a pocket in his coat, before turning and running for his life, hoping that he would be able to get away in the real world.

Bray was exhausted after finally making it back to the mall after giving the Demon Dogs the run around for at least half an hour before they had gotten bored and headed back to their own sector. By the time he arrived back, Amber had already left, and the note had gone from where he had left it on her bed.

Concerned for her safety, not knowing if the rival tribe had stuck around nearby his picnic set up, he turned and headed back in the direction of the sewers, heart pumping in worry as he wondered if she was safe.

“Amber!” he spoke in relief as she came out of the shadows from the sewer just as he was about to enter.

“ _What_ do you think you're playing at? Leading me right out there on my own, only to find that you're back _here_. Is this some kind of a joke?” she frowned, glaring at him harshly.

“No,” Bray shook his head, and wondered how he could explain. “I -” he started, and then he felt the heavy weight in his pocket, and reached down, pulling out the bottle of wine from his pocket. “I got you this?” he offered, holding it out to her with a wide smile on his face.

Amber stared at him for a moment, speechless, incredulous, and then let out a long-suffering sigh, turning on her heel and heading further into the mall, leaving the bottle of wine in his hands.

 

 **3\. Telling tales.**

Bray was putting the finishing touches to the gift when there was a knock on the door of his bedroom. He looked up, and told the visitor to come in. When the door opened, Salene stepped inside, the smile on her face that she usually reserved for Bray alone.

“What are you up to?” she asked, showing that she didn't really have a reason to be there.

Bray shrugged a little. “Nothing much,” he said casually, and there was an awkward silence before he added, “did you want something? I'm kind of busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Making something.”

“What?”

“A gift for Amber,” Bray told her eventually with a smile, feeling that she wasn't going to let him be until he answered her question properly.

“Oh,” Salene replied, seemingly somewhat insulted by that answer. “Well, I hope she likes it,” she commented rather less than sincerely, and turned and left the room. The moment the door was closed Bray returned to what he was doing, trying to figure out how girls managed to curl straight pieces of ribbon and wishing he hadn't sent Salene away so quickly.

He waited all day for the opportune moment to hand the gift to Amber, but that moment just didn't seem to come. She was in a bad mood, then she was outside the mall, then she was cleaning and no one interrupted Amber when she was cleaning, and dinner time came by and it was still sitting in his pocket waiting for that moment to come.

Dinner was usually a rather uncivilised affair and today was no exception. Rations were being switched all over the place, Lex was demanding twice the amount, the kids were hating every mouthful – apparently today was _not_ their favourite.

Bray wished he could have sensed this moment coming, but he didn't.

“So Amber,” Salene suddenly spoke as she stood up to move her empty plate. “What did you think of the gift Bray got for you?” she asked, an innocent expression on her face, and Bray's face dropped.

“Gift? What gift?” Amber asked, and glanced across the table curiously, and Bray looked at her face, she looked almost happy, and he opened his mouth to speak.

“I didn't get you a gift,” he muttered. He really didn't want to hand Amber present with everyone sitting there watching, but she seemed embarrassed by this answer, like she'd really been hoping he would stand up and present her with something special, and he'd just gone and ruined it.

The whole table had gone silent, witnessing the whole unfortunate moment. Everyone was staring at

Bray, everyone could feel the awkwardness. Amber stood up with her half-empty plate, and headed off to her bedroom to finish alone, away from the sudden atmosphere.

“Thanks, Salene,” Bray murmured, shooting the girl a less than pleasant look.

Salene simply smiled. “You're welcome,” she replied pleasantly, heading to wash her plate.

 

 **4\. Interferences from mischievous children.**

In this world, notes were the best method of getting a request across. There were no phone calls or emails or text messages and lets face it, Bray had no idea how to get a pigeon to carry anything across the mall, and so although notes had failed him in the past, he decided to rely on them once again. Because of course, the old fashioned method of simply asking a girl on a date in person, was just too awkward for him to consider.

He'd been heading towards Amber's room to leave the note, when he'd been accosted by Lex telling him that it was his turn for guard duty. He didn't really feel in the mood to be arguing with him, and it probably wouldn't get him anywhere anyway, so he re-thought his plan in his mind.

“Patsy! Cloe!” he called; the kids were always good for sending on errands. A few moments later, the pair appeared from down one of the corridors in the mall, with Bob following closely behind as usual. As they stood watching him curiously, he handed the note to Patsy.

“I want you to go and put this on Amber's bed for me. But only if she isn't there, okay? Wait until she leaves. And don't tell anyone about this. I have some candy for you later,” he promised with a smile. The pair nodded, wide eyed and happy at the prospect of getting a reward for such a simple task, and Patsy took the letter, the pair of them turning and dashing off as Bray headed off to do his guard duty.

Bray's guard duty came and went, and a smile on his face, he headed towards Amber's room to fetch her for the date he'd promised her in the note. He hadn't revealed exactly what they were going to be doing on this date although he had it all planned out in his head, he wanted to surprise her.

It seemed, however, that she was intent on surprising _him._ He knocked on the door to her room and entered, and before he could even speak, the palm of her hand made contact with the side of his face. “He blinked, and opened his mouth to say something, but she interrupted before he even took a breath.

“You couldn't tell me to my face, huh?”

“Well I wanted it to be a surprise!” Bray protested, wondering why that deserved a slap around the face.

“Well it was certainly a _surprise._ ”

“I just wanted to take you on a date, is that so bad?”

Amber glared at him, and tugged a piece of paper which Bray recognised as the note that he had written for her earlier that day. “You want to date someone who you find _bossy_ and _annoying_ and someone you _'wouldn't be with if you were the last person on earth.'”_

“Let me see that,” Bray frowned, and snatched the piece of paper away. A lot of the handwriting was still his own, but someone, and he could certainly guess who, had found some white-out and had decided to make a few corrections. He was amazed at how well they had imitated his handwriting, although he didn't want to praise their attention to detail.

“No... Amber, I didn't – that wasn't me,” Bray protested.

“Oh? Well it's in    
_your_   
handwriting. I seriously don't know what's wrong with you recently, Bray. And I thought Lex was the immature one.”

“Amber -”

“Grow up, Bray.”

It was getting to be a familiar site, seeing the back of Amber as she stormed off, furious with him. Bray let out a heavy sigh, and was about to head back to his own room, when he heard giggling coming from nearby, and he changed his route. Time to ruin the fun of some children who were certainly not getting any candy from him any time soon.


End file.
